An attempt is made to share the truth regarding issues concerning Israel and her right to exist as a Jewish nation. This blog has expanded to present information about radical Islam and its potential impact upon Israel and the West. Yes, I do mix in a bit of opinion from time to time.

Friday, August 31, 2012

This week, without a murmur of
dissent, the Egyptian Government restored the right to declare war to
the President with the concurrence of Parliament. Morsi is continuing an
evolution that promises to hasten the decline of American influence.

How much recent events have eroded U.S. security interests in Egypt
depends on how deeply rooted those interests were in the first place.
Although the Mubarak government did some things we wanted it to do, it
did other things that were anathema. Mubarak, with U.S. complicity and
Israeli acquiescence, fed the growth of a military that could be used
for good or ill while he fed the Egyptian people lies about Israel,
about war, about Jews and about peace. In the bigger picture, Egypt
always saw itself with Arab and Sunni and larger Muslim responsibilities
as well as responsibilities to its non-Muslim patron, whether the U.S.
or Russia before it.

Vice Premier Moshe Ya'alon said on Friday he feared
Iran did not believe it faced a real military threat from the outside
world because of mixed messages from foreign powers, including the
United States.

"We have an exchange of views, including with our
friends in the United States, who in our opinion, are in part
responsible for this feeling in Iran," he told Israel's 100FM radio
station.

By
Tuesday, 50 Israeli families will have been tossed out of their homes
in their village of Migron, which is set for destruction.

They will not be dispossessed because they unlawfully squatted on someone else's property.

The
residents of Migron will be tossed from their homes - on the order of
the Supreme Court - because Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein and his
associates believe they are above the law. And due to this opinion,
Weinstein and his associates refuse to recognize the sovereign authority
of Israel's government or to act in accordance with its lawful
decisions.

The media have alternatively
presented the story of Migron's imminent destruction as a story about a
power struggle between so-called settlers and the IDF, whose forces will
be called upon to eject them from their homes; or as a struggle between
the Israeli residents of Judea and Samaria and Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu; or as a struggle between the radical leftists from Peace Now
and its fellow foreign government-financed NGOs, and the residents of
Judea and Samaria.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff warns
applying pressure on Iran "could be undone if [Iran] was attacked
prematurely" • IAEA report confirms Tehran has continued to expand
nuclear program and has nearly 190 kg of higher-grade enriched uranium •
200-250 kg needed for bomb.

U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
General Martin Dempsey has reinforced Washington's opposition to
unilateral Israel military action against Iran, saying "I don't want to
be complicit if they [Israel] choose to do it."

Speaking to reporters in London on Thursday,
where he was in town for the opening of the London 2012 Paralympic Games
as head of the U.S. delegation, Dempsey said he did not know Iran's
nuclear intentions, as intelligence did not reveal intentions. What was
clear, he said, was that the "international coalition" applying pressure
on Iran "could be undone if [Iran] was attacked prematurely." Sanctions
against Iran were having an effect, and they should be given a
reasonable opportunity to succeed, he said.

Phew. We can breathe easier now that the Obama administration has taken a
tough-as-scimitars line with Israel, whose existentially threatening
architectural blueprints for new housing, the administration says, pose a
dire threat to U.S. troops and interests. Or, as Vice President Joseph
Biden put it, referring to a new housing project in Jerusalem, as
reported by Yedioth Ahronoth: "This is starting to get dangerous for us.
What you're doing here undermines the security of our troops who are
fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan." In other words, maybe it's
not the Muslim-made IED planted in the roads of Helmand Province that's
the problem; maybe it's the Jewish-built condo in Jerusalem. Such is the
babble of the jihad-blackmailed. And the problem with giving in to
blackmail is that it never ends.

There is an old joke that if you have two Jews in a room you will have
three opinions. But thanks to President Barack Obama, he has been able
to accomplish what even Moses couldn’t do, create a consensus among
Jews, well at least Israeli Jews. They have by a strong majority united
on one thing: They don’t like president Obama. A recent poll
commissioned by the Begin Sadat Center at Bar Ilan University and the
Anti-Defamation League revealed that only 32% of Israelis have a
positive view of Obama as compared to 2009, when his likeability among
them was at 54%. You see, Israelis tend to be a very action-oriented
people, hence their ability to turn an arid desert into a high-tech
verdant success in quick time. They know talk is cheap, promises have
expiration dates, and words make for poor armament when rockets hit
their towns and their buses are blowing up. As such, when the current
American President says, “I have Israel’s back,” Israelis are not
convinced. With aggressive enemies at every turn they have developed
heightened survival skills and have eyes in the backs of their heads,
and frankly, they don’t like what they see coming out of this White
House. This consensus, among a highly opinionated people, should be the
paramount indicator that the current president is not conducive to
Israel’s wellbeing.

Poor
Mickey Kaus. He’s the liberal intellectual (not an oxymoron — he’s the
last known living “liberal intellectual”) lefties on TV are usually
stealing from, but now that this welfare reform maven has concluded that
Romney’s welfare ad is basically correct, liberals refuse to
acknowledge his existence.

The non-Fox media have formed a solid front in denouncing Romney’s
welfare ad for daring to point out that Obama has gutted the work
requirements of the 1996 welfare reform bill.

The New York Times claims that Romney’s ad “falsely” charges Obama
with eliminating work requirements. CNN rates the ad “false.”
Underemployed hack Howard Fineman says Romney’s ad “is just flat out
wrong on the facts” and “that every fair analyst, every fact checker”
has said it’s “just factually wrong.”

When a campaign ad induces this much hysteria, you know Romney has
struck gold. On closer examination, it turns out that by “every fair
analyst,” Fineman means a bunch of liberals quoting one another.

Stay up-to-date on all the convention news by visiting TheBlaze’s dedicated RNC page. Also find out how you can watch exclusive, live reports and analysis on TheBlaze TV here.
–
Paul Ryan’s speech accepting his nomination for the vice presidency
of the United States last night has already been widely hailed as a home
run national debut by many sources. So it’s no surprise that the Left,
which views Ryan’s ideas as the political equivalent of Typhoid Mary,
has already pounced on the speech for its alleged inaccuracies, while
simultaneously bringing up every conceivable nitpick they can.

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Really ugly, if truth be
told. That's the situation in Migron. The High Court released its
decision yesterday:

The residents -- all of them,
including the 17 who re-purchased the land on which their homes are sitting --
must be evacuated by next Tuesday. By September 11, all buildings must be
razed except for those on the plot of land that had been re-purchased.

One of the points of criticism is that the event is being led by extremist cleric Siraj Wahhaj, who was named by US Attorney Mary Jo White as “unindicted persons who may be alleged as co-conspirators” in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing trial, and appeared as a character witness for the mastermind of the plot, the “Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdel-Rahman (prosecuted by our PJ Media colleague, former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy).

“Three Card
Monte” for the Arab refugees is a con game in which the mark (the US tax payer)
is tricked into giving aid to “refugees” to split between the dealer and the
shills, UNRWA and the Palestinian / Hamas leadership.

Jack Berger
writes on a variety of Middle East and Jewish subjects, including politics and
the Diaspora in relation to the history of the Jewish people.

The War of Independence for Israel in
reality began on November 30, 1947, the day after the United Nations vote for
the reestablishment of the homeland for the Jewish people.

Until the U.N. vote, the Arabs and their British allies had
been on their best behavior … after the vote the gloves came off.

It should be remembered that the
original agreement regarding the reestablishment of the Jewish State was
previously confirmed under the provisions of the Balfour Declaration (1917)
with the agreement being fully implemented at the conference in San Remo,
Italy in 1920, under the powers vested by the League
of Nations called thereafter the Mandate for Palestine.

In 1920, the homeland of the Jews was
to be “on the banks of the Jordan River…” on both the west and the east banks
of the Jordan. In 1922, Winston
Churchill, the British Colonial Secretary and Alex Kirkbride, acting
Governor of Moab, in disregard of Britain’s obligations under the Mandate,
lopped off 78% of the land designated for the National
homeland of the Jewish people thereafter calling it Trans-Jordan. … for
Britain, one could only say, “agreements were made to be broken” and so the
area left for the reestablishment of the Jewish homeland was only 22% of the
original Mandate, the areas west of the Jordan river.

This is a war
the Arabs are winning. Israel is being conquered with full approval of the
government of Israel.

In an interview
in the Arab daily Al-Sharq al-Awsat on September 1, 2009 Fayyad made his
intentions very clear: “Many think that zone ‘C’ areas have become disputed
territories rather than occupied territories in the public consciousness. We
assert that these are Palestinian National Authority territories where the
state will be established.”

With rise of Morsy, a new dictatorship may be replacing the old while world persists in looking for signs of pragmatism.

PHOTO: MOHAMED ABD EL-GHANY/REUTERS

While
the world persists in looking for signs of pragmatism in the Egyptian
president, Mohamed Morsy is quietly taking over all the power bases in
the country.

Having gotten rid of the army old guard, he replaced them with
his own men – officers belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood or known
sympathizers. Then he turned his attention to the media, replacing 50
editors working for the government’s extensive and influential press
empire – including Al- Ahram, Al-Akhbar, Al-Gomhuria. He is now busy appointing new governors to the 27 regions of the country.

Hosni Mubarak used to choose retired generals he could depend on
for these sensitive posts; Morsy is hand picking party faithful. At the
same time upper echelons in government ministries and economic and
cultural organizations are methodically being replaced. The Muslim
Brotherhood is fast assuming total control. For many observers, the
deployment of army units in Sinai is more about proclaiming Egyptian
sovereignty in the face of Israel than actually fighting Islamic
terrorism.

Speaking to veterans at the American Legion conference this week, President Obama said, “Today, every American can be proud that the United States is safer, stronger and more respected in the world.”

That’s quite a statement from a President who has granted legitimacy
to extremist organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood and promised the
Russians he would be “flexible” toward their demands on missile defense, while slighting American allies like Poland and the Czech Republic.

Heritage defense experts call Obama’s defense strategy “a strategy of hope“:
“a hope that big wars are a thing of the past; a hope that America’s
allies will do more; and a hope that fewer resources do not jeopardize
the lives of American soldiers.”

These are flimsy hopes in the face of hostile nations and terrorist
groups that want nothing more than the destruction of America.

In the old days, 10 years ago, jihadists
vowed death to Western imperialism on audiotapes that couriers smuggled
out of mountain hideouts and passed to satellite TV stations.

The next generation of militants has a much simpler way to proselytize: Twitter.

For years, Islamist extremists have
struggled to outsmart the censors in online forums – with their videos
yanked from YouTube, their pages flagged on Facebook and their message
boards hacked – but Twitter still offers a rare unfiltered space for the
groups, according to analysts who monitor militants’ online presence.

On one recent Sunday, for example, the
Syrian jihadist group Jabhat al Nusra sent out a flurry of tweets from
its official account, joining the Somali militants from al Shabab,
Afghanistan’s extremist Taliban, and other hard-line Islamist fighters
from Kenya and Yemen on the microblogging service that claims more than
140 million users.

For
those who think that Israel is a $3 billion-a-year strategic liability
for the U.S., the cause of Muslim terrorism, Mideast instability, and
high gas prices, New York attorney and Israel advocate Mark Langfan has a
message: Get a map.

Preferably, the 3D topographic raised-relief map system of Israel
that Langfan developed back in 1991, which gives viewers a perspective
on Israel – and on the Middle East – that they may not have had before.
The map shows just how important Israel is to U.S. interests – how a
strong and secure Israel, far from being a strategic liability, is
actually the one thing that is preventing the Middle East from falling
into complete chaos.

The United States is backing off from the Middle East -- and the Middle East from the United States.

America is in the midst of the greatest domestic gas and oil revolution
since the early 20th century. If even guarded predictions about new
North American reserves are accurate, over the next decade the entire
continent may become energy-independent, without much need of petroleum
imports from the Middle East.

America's diminishing reliance on
the Persian Gulf coincides with mounting Chinese dependency on Middle
Eastern oil and gas. So as the Persian Gulf becomes less important to
us, it grows even more critical to the oil-hungry, cash-laden -- and
opportunistic -- Chinese.

After two wars in the Middle East,
Americans are as tired of our forces being sent over there as Middle
Easterners are of having us there.

One of the conundrums associated with the enduring nature of
global anti-Semitism which has soared exponentially in recent years, is
why, having made such disproportionate contributions towards all levels
of civilization and left major imprints on science, ethics, medicine,
culture and the arts, we Jews continue to act as a magnet for such
virulent hatred.

Equally bizarre is the failure of formerly oppressed groups and
nations to reciprocate or even acknowledge the extraordinary Jewish
contributions in support of their struggles towards overcoming
persecution, discrimination, abuse of human rights and achieving
independence.

With the next four years at stake, the only topic of conversation is the
Race Card. The left plays the Race Card and then accuses the right of
playing the Race Card. There are dogwhistles in the air that only white
middle-aged pundits can hear and arguments over whose diverse lineup
truly represents the philosophy of the future and whose is just
shameless tokenism.

The media madhouse insists that a half-black man who went from the
Illinois State Senate to
the White House in 5 years is proof that we are a racist country and
that Southern Europeans whose ancestors moved to this continent are an
oppressed racial minority.
Arguing with this insanity is a sure way to get called a racist.
Ignoring this insanity means being charged with privilege. Privilege
being the ungodly power to ignore someone else's assertion that
privilege through victimization should begin and end every single
discussion on every topic, up to and including the moon landing.

The
illegal “building intifada” being waged by the Palestinian Authority on
state lands in Area C of Judea and Samaria has become the latest
battleground for the radical Left in conjunction with foreign-funded
Israeli so-called human rights NGO’s such as B’tselem and Bimkom.

The illegal “building intifada” being waged by the Palestinian Authority on
state lands in Area C of Judea and Samaria, (the West Bank), has become the
latest battleground for the radical Left in conjunction with foreign-funded
Israeli socalled human rights NGO’s such as B’tselem and Bimkom.

This
unlawful land theft is being carried out with the full support of the EU,
foreign aid organizations and the UN.

Under the Oslo Accords, Israel was
allocated full administrative and security control over Area
C. Allocation of final sovereignty in Area C was to be determined in
negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority under the Oslo Accords
and the Bush Roadmap of 2002.

Migron residents called on their supporters Wednesday to protest the same day
High Court of Justice ruling that all 50 families in the West Bank outpost
evacuate their homes no later than September 4.

The court’s decision
appears to mark the end of Migron residents’ long legal battle to retain their
homes.

It was issued in the evening, as the sun set over the small
outpost in the Binyamin region of the West Bank. Men were reciting the evening
prayer in the synagogue and a few small children played in the adjacent parking
lot.

Four Migron residents and Binyamin Regional Council head Avi Ro’eh
held a brief press conference in the community’s small kindergarten classroom,
decorated for the start of school with the words, “A sweet
beginning.”

It is now become clear that neither diplomacy nor sanctions will halt
the Iranian march toward nuclear weapons. Iran is today stronger
diplomatically than it has been in years, as evidenced by the meeting of
the nonaligned nations in Tehran. Iran is neither isolated nor alone in
a world in which nonaligned nations form a majority at the United
Nations.
The sanctions, while hurting the Iranian economy and making life more
difficult for the average Iranian, are having zero impact on the
Iranian nuclear program, which according to objective intelligence
reports, is gathering steam and moving even more quickly toward its
ultimate goal of a nuclear weapon that will be a game changer. An
Iranian nuclear weapon will end any dream of nonproliferation. It will
protect Iran's surrogate terrorists, such as Hezbollah, under a
formidable nuclear umbrella. And it will make an eventual nuclear war
more likely. That is why President Obama rightfully took the containment
option off the table and put the preventive military option squarely on
it.

If the political traditions of
Greece and the Netherlands are undergoing the same upheaval, it cannot
just be due to economic distress. German politicians should reflect that
if the revolution against the old regime is not stopped in Greece, it
may turn up on their own doorstep.

After Greece's second parliamentary election this year (June 2012),
there was a collective sigh of relief in Europe. The political parties
that negotiated the bailouts of Greece in 2010 and 2011 had secured a
majority in the new parliament and formed a government that was
committed to avoiding a Greek default. Europe's political leaders could
now hasten to damp down the next brush fire in the Eurozone, the crisis
of the Spanish banks. What those political leaders overlooked was that
the Greek political scene has undergone a revolution.

To be precise, the conservative New Democracy party (ND) had narrowly
defeated SYRIZA, the leftist alliance, and formed a government with the
Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), its old rival, and the
Democratic Left. By contrast, SYRIZA had campaigned for repudiation of
what Greeks call "the memorandum" (to mnimonio), that is, the
program of drastic financial measures to which the preceding Greek
governments had agreed in exchange for the bailouts.

Zahra Billoo may be one of the more refreshing new faces among Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) officials.

Rather than following her organization's habit of engaging in doublespeak,
she speaks in plain, and often hyperbolic and conspiracy-minded
language. For that, she is the subject of the Investigative Project on
Terrorism's latest profile.

She's a prolific poster on Twitter, appearing to revel in being provocative:

"What do Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden
and Muammar Gaddafi all have in common? They were funded by the US," she
wrote in June. She didn't mention that her bosses at CAIR solicited money from Gaddafi in 2009.

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

High expectations are both a blessing and a curse. They are the
former in that usually something worthwhile about someone has raised the
expectations in the first place. They are the latter when someone fails
to meet those expectations. Heightened, maybe even unwarranted,
expectations were a serious problem for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
from the very beginning of his rise to power in 2000 following the
death of his father, Hafiz al-Assad.

As I noted in Middle East Policy Council a couple of years back, I
half jokingly told Bashar the first time we met in 2004 that I thought
he had made a mistake in letting the media know that he enjoyed Phil
Collins’ music. This anecdote fed into an emerging narrative of the
relatively unknown al-Assad that he was a pro-West modernizer who was
very different from his father. Indeed, Bashar was also the chairman of
the Syrian Computer Society and was actually a bit of a geek himself.

If Abbas endorses the findings of
the Palestinian commission of inquiry and takes action against the
officials who ordered the beatings, he will send a message to his
constituents which reassures them that no one is above the law, and that
he cares about freedom of media and human rights. But any attempt to
sweep the findings under the carpet will show that the talk about
transparency and accountability in the Palestinian Authority is not
serious and will play into the hands of Hamas.

A Palestinian commission of inquiry into the beating of Palestinian
journalists and demonstrators in Ramallah has found that top officials
in Mahmoud Abbas's office had ordered the assault.

The discovery did not come as a surprise to many Palestinians, who
have long been accusing the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank of
waging a campaign of intimidation and terror against journalists,
bloggers and political opponents.

Yesterday,
an Israeli court ruled that Rachel Corrie's death was a "regrettable
accident," but that Rachel Corrie "chose to put herself in danger."
Rachel Corrie was killed when she was run over by an Israeli army
bulldozer in Gaza, at a time when Israel was working to curb terrorist
activity in the area. Corrie's family sued Israel for "wrongful death."
The family's Israeli Arab lawyer, Hussein Abu Hussein, said in a
statement to the press:

"It's a black
day for activists of human rights and people who believe in values of
dignity. We believe this decision is a bad decision for all of us -
civilians first of all, and peace activists." [NY Times, August 28,
2012]

Palestinian Media Watch is releasing a statement made by the Israeli Arab lawyer last month that shows his attitudes towards Israel in general.

Small businesses are getting a lot of focus from politicians, because
they are a key engine of job creation—which has stalled in the U.S.
economy. A Republican National Convention theme of “We Built It” continued the political debate over the economy yesterday.

A survey
by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) in July
revealed that small businesses’ top three concerns were taxes,
regulations, and poor sales. A quick look at these top three small
business struggles shows they have every reason to be demoralized.

If you believe the media, then Rachel Corrie was
just a naive idealistic woman who wanted to fight for Palestinian
rights. If you believe her parents, then she was killed by an Israeli
government conspiracy. If you believe her lawyer, then Israel is worse than Nazi Germany.

Rachel Corrie’s parents knew exactly what they were doing when they
chose Hussein Abu Hussein to represent them and their case. They chose a
radical who says, “Israel is a “giant monster… we all want to step on
its head, but talking is not enough” and “Nazi Germany was a state based
on the rule of law… for a short while… the State of Israel was founded
from the start on robbery and theft.”

The truth about Rachel Corrie and her family and her supporters is
that they are extremists. They are not interested in justice. All they
care about is continuing the struggle to destroy the Jewish State that
Rachel Corrie enlisted in.

There is an interesting detail in this 2003 article from
a local Olympia, Washington newspaper that profiles a number of
Evergreen College students who traveled to Rafah along with Rachel
Corrie:

Rafah is one of the most dangerous places in the Gaza Strip--"a combat zone," according to Captain Jacob Dallal, the Israeli army spokesperson.

...My Jewish ass has been to Israel several times, but never to Gaza,
and I am a bit scared. I have been told not to use any of my Arabic,
lest I be suspected of being an Israeli spy. Above all, I have been told not to mention my religion.

[Corrie's] cohorts at ISM Rafah were an international group, with
members from both Europe and the U.S. It was a young group--most people
were under 30, and many were closer to 20. And it was a group that held
the potential for romance--a Swedish ISMer named Stefan Villkatt would
soon become Rachel's boyfriend.

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away,”
Philip K. Dick said, when asked to define what reality is. Dick was a
Science Fiction writer and that seems appropriate enough we are living
in a Science Fiction world where there is no reality anymore, because
the real goes away, but the unreal does not.

Virtual reality, it turned out, was not some complicated gizmo that made
you look like a blind skier and allowed you to enter into another
world, instead it was an unreal world being comprehensively overlaid on
top of our own. The lines between the real and the unreal haven't
blurred because the unreal has gotten so much more sophisticated. The
unreal is more fake than ever, but discerning that has become more
difficult now that the real has gone away.

If you listen to America's political hacks, mainstream media talking
heads and their socialist allies, you can't help but reach the
conclusion that the nation's tax burden is borne by the poor and
middleclass while the rich get off scot-free.

Stephen Moore,
senior economics writer for The Wall Street Journal, and I'm proud to
say former GMU economics student, wrote "The U.S. Tax System: Who Really
Pays?" in the Manhattan Institute's Issue 2012 (8/12). Let's see
whether the rich are paying their "fair" share.

8/29/2012

If you asked a team of expert psychologists and
sociological researchers to come up with a design that was sure to
infuriate and offend liberals in America, they’d probably come up with
what we call the Great Seal.

The Great Seal has got it all—everything liberals despise is there, front and center.
In the first place, you’ve got your eagle, holding arrows. What good
could those arrows possibly serve, aside from celebrating the violent
blood lust that liberals see in Americans? It doesn’t matter to them
that in the eagle’s right talon he’s clutching the olive branch of
peace—making the visual point that Teddy Roosevelt made 150 years later
with the words “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”

A reader asks: where are all these tens and even hundreds of millions of Muslim anti-Islamists.

I
wrote an entire book about the liberals and moderates called The Long
War for Freedom. There are a number of scholars who have written such
books, even analogies of moderate Muslim writings. Oh, yes, and then
there is every book and article written by non-Islamist Muslims over
decades.

The
problem today is that we are caught between two lies. The mainstream
Western lie is that Islam is a religion of peace full stop. There is
nothing at all militant in its texts. A small fringe of extremists have
misinterpreted it or are even heretics. So all Muslims are moderates
pretty much, either moderate moderates or moderate Islamists. And anyone
who says otherwise is an Islamophobic racist.

The Los Angeles Times has just posted my response to Nathan Lean's nasty hit piece that ran the other day. You can find my fuller response here.
And one last question: Osama bin Laden praised Noam Chomsky. Does that
make Noam Chomsky responsible for Osama's bloody jihad, including the
murders of 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001? By Nathan Lean's
logic, Chomsky would indeed be responsible. But you will never hear Lean
saying that -- and that in itself exposes his real agenda.

Nathan Lean wants "society" to take action against those who
stand for freedom and human rights against jihad, Sharia and Islamic
supremacism, for we "must be stopped." This is a veiled but clear call
for restrictions on our freedom of speech. By publishing it on its Aug.
26 Op-Ed page, The Times is working against its own interests. For my
opinions are certainly politically incorrect today, but if Lean succeeds
in getting them criminalized, editors at The Times might find one day
that they too hold an opinion unacceptable to those in power.

A few days ago there occurred one of those telling little episodes that
captures the essence and folly of the Obama administration's approach to foreign
policy. The meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement is being hosted this week in
Iran, and the administration had urged United Nations Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon not to attend as a signal of displeasure at Tehran's serial violations
of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Of course Mr. Ban is going.

The
administration’s response to Mr. Ban’s decision was “muted,” according
to the New York Times, evidently out of sympathy for his delicate
position: Most U.N. member states are also members of the Non-Aligned
Movement, and it’s customary for U.N. secretaries-general to attend the
meetings. There’s also hope Mr. Ban will make a public stink in Iran
about its leaders’ nuclear bid or their calls to wipe out Israel. And
maybe he will.

Still, there’s no overlooking the central point of this tussle: In
the global popularity contest between Barack Obama and Ali Khamenei, the
ayatollah is winning.

After the
Rafah attack, it was noticeable that the Egyptian government refrained
from condemning the terrorists’ plan to carry out a mass-casualty attack
in Israel. Indeed, senior Muslim Brotherhood figures pointed an
accusing finger at Israel, claiming it was behind the attack in an
attempt to create a rift between Egypt and Hamas.

Apart from the anti-Israel propaganda line,
the investigation of the attack by Egyptian intelligence found tracks
leading in the direction of Gaza. Security sources in Egypt told the
Egyptian newspaper Al-Youm al-Saba that the Palestinian
organization Army of Islam was responsible for the attack. They said
that the day before it occurred, there was a meeting in one of the homes
of the Army of Islam’s leader in Rafah; about 35 activists
participated, and it was decided to carry out the attack.

A funny thing happened on race-obsessed MSNBC tonight. The liberal
network failed to give viewers coverage of the speakers who happen to be
member of racial minorities. As Francesca Chambers, Editor of Red
Alert Politics, reported on August 28th:

When popular Tea Party candidate Ted Cruz, the GOP nominee for
Senate, took the stage, MSNBC cut away from the Republican National
Convention and the Hispanic Republican from Texas’ speech.

Maggie
I
see a lot of conversation around the blogosphere about the propriety of
Military rank-and-file speaking out about this administration. Getting
to the general topic of the Military must NEVER criticize their
Commander-in-Chief, and the long and honored history of that creed, we
must face the fact that we have allowed a President to release
classified information for political gain, more than once, while being
so absent of leadership that the troops in the field are not allowed to
protect themselves. See the video below.

With no debate, lawmakers on Tuesday approved a resolution that
encourages university leaders to combat a wide array of anti-Jewish and
anti-Israel actions.

“California schools need to recognize that anti-Semitism is still a very
real issue on college campuses around the state—it did not disappear
with the end of World War II,” said Assemblywoman Linda Halderman,
R-Fresno, the resolution’s author.

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

s this is written, nothing has
transpired yet in Migron. Nor has the Court delivered a finding on the
matter.

~~~~~~~~~~

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi,
before going to the Non-Affiliated Movement conference in Iran, gave a
press conference. Not referring to Israel directly but clearly
alluding to Israel, he said:

"Egypt is practicing its very normal role on its soil and does not threaten
anyone and there should not be any kind of international or regional concerns at
all from the presence of Egyptian security forces."

The military campaign, he declared, was in "full respect to
international treaties."

Well, I rather doubt that the military campaign fully
respected Egypt's treaty with Israel. And I note his reference to a "very
normal role on its soil," which implies -- erroneously -- that Egypt can proceed
as it sees fit in Sinai.

What I believe we do have here, however, is a statement that no
Egyptian hostilities are intended beyond the border of Sinai.

It was a horrible tragedy. In March 2003, Rachel Corrie, a
23-year-old American, was hanging out in Gaza, trying her hand at
“pro-Palestinian activism.” One day, as an Israeli bulldozer was
dismantling tunnels used by Gazans to smuggle weapons, Corrie decided to
protest. She positioned herself in a trench, in a spot invisible to the
Israeli bulldozer driver, and was accidentally crushed to death.

Testifying under oath, the bulldozer driver said he did not realize
he had run over Corrie until he heard what had happened over the radio
network.

Pro-Palestinian activists seized the opportunity to promote Corrie’s
death as a blood libel, accusing Israel of intentional murder. As George
Rishmawi, director of the group that sponsored Corrie’s stay in Gaza,
told the San Francisco Chronicle (July 14, 2004): Placing
American students in danger is good for the Palestinian cause because
“if some of these foreign volunteers get shot or even killed, then the
international media will sit up and take notice.”

Israel’s Ambassador
to Germany Yakov Hadas-Handelsman criticized on Monday the decision of the city
of Frankfurt to award the Adorno prize to US professor Judith Butler.
Hadas-Handelsman pointed to the fact that Butler previously described
Hezbollah and Hamas as "progressive organizations," which he said
showed ignorance towards their "participation in terror against
civilians and the attitude of
these organizations to religious pluralism and equal rights between men
and
women and between people of different sexual orientations.”

The rhetorical Medicare wars have heated up this week, after President Obama declared in his Saturday radio address that his proposed reforms “won’t touch your guaranteed Medicare benefits. Not by a single dime.”

This is incorrect. Obamacare cuts $716 billion
from Medicare over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional
Budget Office (CBO), and uses these “savings” from Medicare to fund
other entitlement expansions mandated by Obamacare. Medicare becomes a
cash cow for Obamacare, and the Medicare “savings” from payment cuts are
not put back into making Medicare solvent. Such massive payment cuts do
impact Medicare benefits, as well as seniors’ access to those benefits.
Heritage’s Alyene Senger explains how this hurts America’s seniors:

The impact of these cuts will be detrimental to seniors’
access to care. The Medicare trustees 2012 report concludes that these
lower Medicare payment rates will cause an estimated 15 percent of
hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, and home health agencies to
operate at a loss by 2019, 25 percent to operate at a loss in 2030, and
40 percent by 2050. Operating at a loss means these facilities are
likely to cut back their services to Medicare patients or close their
doors, making it more difficult for seniors to access these services.

I have elicited a response from Jeffrey Goldberg
(who interviewed my previously but I didn't make it into to his
"settler" profile) to my remarks on the charge of a “two-tiered” system
he accuses Israel of promoting.

Let’s be clear, a two-tier system is taken to be a type of payroll
system in which one group of workers receives lower wages and/or
employee benefits than another and Goldberg extends that to include the
situation of Israel in Judea and Samaria. I railed against that
portrayal at this post: Two-tiered is a Double Standard.

Goldberg proceeds to disassemble my arguments, well, he thinks so, and it is my pleasure to return the favor.

First, he attacks my argument that since "Arabs living in Judea and
Samaria are not citizens of Israel, they can't vote" and maintains that
is equivalent to someone justifying South African Blacks being denied
the right to vote.

I have seen many news reports about the murder of a settler family by an
unknown intruder, but none of these reports have made note of the real
tragedy in this case. That of the knife. Jewish children are a dime a
dozen. One can hardly walk through Jerusalem without being able to throw
a stone in the direction of half a dozen of them. But knives are a
vital part of Palestinian culture. A good throat slitting knife may be
handed down through the generations.

With Rachel Corrie in the news today
and trending on Twitter, it's time to remember some of the other
Rachels who were murdered by Palestinian Terrorists (you know, the
friends of the ISM) who didn't get a day in court. You can read about
each of them in the enclosed hyperlinks.

"They said the constitution is their Quran; I say the Quran is our constitution." — Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi

Egypt's new president, Mohamed Morsi, using an alleged terrorist
attack in the Sinai Peninsula as a pretext, has been able to fire senior
army generals, increase extensively his presidential power and send troops into the Sinai Peninsula in direct contravention of what the peace treaty with Israel permits.

Egypt's state-run TV reported that Islamic fundamentalists from the Sinai and the Gaza Strip were suspected of carrying out the attack,
but why would Islamists do that? Logically, Islamist fundamentalists
would be supportive of the Islamist president Morsi, who made his
pro-Islamist agenda clear during his campaign: he wants Sharia law for Egypt .

At the same time, when the Muslim Brotherhood official website blamed
the Israeli intelligence agency, the Mossad, for the attack, Morsi
never dismissed the Brotherhood's allegations, thereby allowing the
terrorist act to be used to spread more anti-Semitism and radical views
against Israel.

Once again, it has been exposed
that Americans and Europeans who claim to be pro-Palestinian are
actually just Israel-haters. For them, the Palestinian issue is just a
vehicle for vomiting their hatred for Israel, and most likely all Jews.
They are closer to Hamas and Islamic Jihad than to moderate Arabs and
Muslims. The Palestinians need support from people who promote
democracy, moderation, accountability and co-existence with Israel.

Some 100 "pro-Palestinian" activists from different countries arrived
in Jordan during the past few days on another anti-Israel mission.
The activists did not come to Jordan to:

Each year since the 1979 revolution, the Iranian
regime marks international Jerusalem (Quds) Day on the last Friday of
the month of Ramadan. As in previous years, the Iranian leadership
called for the destruction of Israel and of “world Zionism,” as
demonstrating masses shouted: “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”
during rallies and addresses by the leadership.

For Shia Iran, the struggle against Israel and
its Western allies is almost its sole common denominator with most of
the Sunni Arab domain. Now, with the rise of Islamist regimes –
especially in Egypt, which Iran views as having broken the taboo on
peace accommodations with Israel – Iran is making enhanced use of the
Palestinian issue and denial of Israel’s right to exist, in order to win
the hearts and minds of Muslims across the Middle East and beyond.

1. The Army of Islam is one of the Salafist jihadi terrorist organizations operating in the Gaza Strip. It is considered a dominant organization, having the highest operational capabilities of
all the global jihad networks in the Gaza Strip. The Army of Islam
splintered off from the Popular Resistance Committees at the beginning
of 2006, and is headed by Mumtaz Dughmush, who comes from a powerful clan centered in the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City. The Army of Islam has close ties to Hamas, which allows it to operate in both the Gazan and Egyptian arenas, despite its Salafist jihadi identity.

2. The Army of Islam collaborated with Hamas in the abduction of
Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in the Kerem Shalom area in June 2006. In
October 2010 it planned to abduct Israelis and/or foreign nationals in
the Sinai Peninsula in collaboration with the Gazan Hamas, but the plans
were prevented from being carried out. The Army of Islam has also
carried out attacks against Western figures in the Gaza Strip and the Egyptian authorities have accused it of carrying out attacks in Egypt (including the mass-casualty suicide bombing attack at the Coptic church in Alexandria in January 2011).

Military Intelligence head Maj.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi says region will face crises and be more prone to unexpected eruptions.

Photo: Screenshot

Israel will face a more unstable, tense, and Islamist environment than in the
past, Military Intelligence head Maj.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi told IDF Chief of Staff,
Maj.-Gen. Benny Gantz on Monday.

The comments were made during a
presentation of an annual Military Intelligence evaluation.

“It will be
an environment that deals with a series of crises, regional and internal, which
raises the level of sensitivity of all players, and which could lead, without
prior planning, to an eruption,” said Kochavi.

The new outbreaks of anti-Muslim
violence in Burma, and Muslim radicalism in India, are, as in so many
cases, manufactured or magnified by manipulated rage, for political
ends.

The Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC), based in Jeddah,
Saudi Arabia, disclosed at its summit, on August 16, that it would take
the question of violence against Rohingya Muslims in Burma (Myanmar) to
the United Nations. Previously, Saudi King Abdullah announced a donation
of US$50 million for relief of the Rohingyas.

Myanmar permitted an OIC delegation to visit the country, and will
allow the Organization to coordinate relief efforts for Rohingyas
displaced within Myanmar. The OIC action came as the global Islamic body
suspended Syria from membership because of the widening bloodshed in
that country.

In June 2012, Rohingya Muslims were attacked in Rakhine State
(formerly Arakan State) on the western Myanmar frontier with Bangladesh,
by the local Arakanese and Bamar (Burman) Buddhist majority. The crisis
followed rumours that a Buddhist woman had been raped and murdered by
Rohingyas.

Integration may even be unattainable if the younger generation of Turkish-Germans increasingly continues to embrace Islam.

Nearly half of all Turks living in Germany say they hope there will
be more Muslims than Christians in Germany in the future, according to a
new survey of Turkish-German mores and attitudes.

The study also shows that Islam is becoming an increasingly important
component of the value structure of Turks in Germany, especially among
the younger generation of Turkish-Germans, who hold religious views more
radical than their elders' views are.

The findings have filled many Germans with a sense of foreboding and are certain to contribute to the ongoing debate (here, here and here) about Muslim integration (or, rather, lack of it) in Germany.

The Barahma tribe in Sinai handed a significant number of weapons and
ammunition over to the Armed Forces on Monday, said the Interior Ministry.
The move is a response to Defense Minister Abdel Fatah al-Sisi’s initiative
to control unlicensed weapons in Sinai, and is intended to as an example to
other tribes in the region to take similar steps in order to secure the
stability and security of the peninsula.
The Interior Ministry said on 10 August that the authorities have seized
over 20,000 weapons in Sinai over the past months, in addition to a high
number of heavy arms and ammunition.

The worldwide recession has forced countries around the world to curb public spending — or risk defaulting on their debt.

The United Kingdom is the latest to tighten its belt. The National Health Service (NHS) — the centralized public agency that runs Britain’s government healthcare system — is being forced to shave $31 billion from its budget by 2015.

These cuts are leading to a precipitous drop in the quality of care patients receive. The NHS has been living well beyond its means for quite awhile. And now brutal government-enforced cost controls are exacting a heavy human toll.

Thanks to Obamacare, America will soon face the same sort of reckoning.

Other nations with government-dominated healthcare systems offer a preview of the fiscal woes and substandard care that lie ahead thanks to the president’s spendthrift reform plan.

We are hypocrites and cowards - we take freedom for granted as it is eroding underneath our feet‏

Message to offended Muslims

A GOOD, TRUE STORY NOT KNOWN BY MANY.....Air Force.

The IDF’s Minorities in Numbers and Pictures

In honor of IDF Diversity Week, we present diversity through numbers and pictures. Each year, more and more Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouin and immigrants from around the world take on the responsibility of defending Israel.

MUSLIMS:

Muslim Arab Israelis are not required to draft in the IDF, but there are many who volunteer. In 2013, there were over 200 Muslims serving in the IDF and over 300 in the reserves.

What happened?

Mark Hasten Tribute Video Touro College

Housing Quiz

The Record-so far...!

CBS special on Bengazi

Report: 83 percent of doctors have considered quitting over Obamacare

Sally Nelson

Eighty-three percent of American physicians have considered leaving their practices over President Barack Obama’s health care reform law, according to a survey released by the Doctor Patient Medical Association.

Islamization on the move

"What we are dealing with is Islamization. Islamization is the imposition of ideological norms in increasing severity. Like Nazification, it transforms a society by remaking it in its own image from the largest to the smallest of details."Daniel Greenfield

Toronto rejects Anti-Israel Ads...

Shrinking Lands

Why Israel opposes international forces in the jordan valley/

/why-israel-opposes-international-forces-in-the-jordan-valley/

Islam is Islam, And That’s It

Back in 2007, when confronted with the phrase “moderate Islam”, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan famously responded: “These descriptions are very ugly, it is offensive and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that’s it.”

Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for uploading and annotating this video: View video at http://gatesofvienna.net/

There's no racist like a liberal racist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vz4PjxSmtoI

Ex-Navy SEAL Drops Bombshell On FOX: Says Government is Creating Conditions to Impose Martial Law R

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDuds14OBiE#t=156

American surprise

The Nairobi Mall Massacre

Ninh Chu Ninh Chu

Islam Untied

Platitudes about Islam being a faith of peace are not credible anymore. Islam is only as good as the way its followers practice it; and if they have created killing fields in the name of Islam, then Islam will be recognized by the silence of those who did not speak out when their faith was being massacred to massacre humanity.

AFTERBURNER w/ BILL WHITTLE: The Lynching

What-are you against peace?

Sydney Wake Up The Horrific Muslim Infiltration Of Britain - Luton

Kerry: 'Core Issue of Instability ... Is the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict'‏

Kerry is no friend. By endorsing the "Arab peace initiative" he shows his true intentions and beliefs . And by endorsing linkage he shows that he is either a liar or a fool.Syria is on fire, Egypt is at best incredibly unstable and this is due to Israel? It is out in the open!

A word to left-wing students

In their own words-ru listening?

"The lesson these Islamist groups appear to be drawing from events in Egypt is that democratic engagement with opponents is pointless. And that doesn't bode well for countries with strong Islamist movements..."

Flashback: Obama Admits He Cut Medicare

Another Democratic slogan blown to h....

Are you aware that in 2013, Middle class taxes go up-significantly?

In January of next year, the federal income tax rate for middle-class taxpayers is scheduled to rise from 25 percent to 28 percent, and the payroll tax is scheduled to rise from 13.3 percent to 15.3 percent… This drives the marginal tax rate based on the aforementioned three taxes to 48.12 percent. Add in state and local property, corporate, excise, and other state and local taxes, and the percentage of each additional dollar that is taxed hovers around 50 percent… When half of each additional dollar earned is taxed away, taxpayers experience a disincentive to start businesses or expand existing ones. This leads to fewer jobs being created.

When nations and cultures ignore the early warning signs of the infiltration of radical Islam

The UK has 85 sharia courts. France has over 750 “no go zones,” Muslim enclaves where even French police don’t enter.

Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDKk15KcqNk&feature=email

No such thing as "Islamophobia"

However, if you do not want your positions challenged or criticized or even researched, make up a new "phobia"-shout it long enough and some "people", agenda driven, will use it. Ay, yes, the false term does keep many, many financially rewarded-follow the money.gs don morris, Ph.D.

Khader Adnan: Leader of Islamic jihad or innocent baker?

Why is HAMAS Inside Tampa Schools?

Clare Lopez

Kelly Miliziano, who teaches history classes at Steinbrenner High School in the Tampa, Florida area apparently thinks it’s perfectly OK to invite a senior official of a HAMAS-affiliated organization into her classroom to discuss Islam with her students. According to local media reports, not only has this been going on for years, but in spite of the civil and criminal proceedings that could result from such reckless negligence, the Hillsborough County school superintendent, Mary Ellen Elia, and the chairman of the school board, Candy Olson, also expressed approval for students under their responsibility to be exposed repeatedly to guest speaker, Hassan Shibly, who is the Executive Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the Tampa area.More...

Omar Barghouti's Propaganda at USC on January 12, 2012

Did You Know... Ignoring the Call to Islam will Bring Jihad

‘Conquest through Da’wa [proselytizing] that is what we hope for. We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America! Not through sword but through Da’wa.’ -- Yousef al-Qaradawi , Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader The Arabic word ‘Da’wa’ means the “call to Islam.” But do not think that Da’wa is the same thing as an invitation to an optional holiday event. The classical Islamic doctrine of jihad mandates that enemies must be given the opportunity to convert to Islam or pay the jizya tax before it is permissible to attack them.Clare M. Lopez

Americans are opening their eyes

Advertisers fleeing All-American Muslim 'propaganda'The American people are seeing through the propaganda piece that is TLC's All-American Muslim reality/dawah show, and responsible advertisers are fleeing in droves. The show aims to combat a trumped-up problem, "Islamophobia," by presenting Muslims who are just ordinary folk, and

Why Islam is Incompatible with Western Law

Col. Allen West answers a question on muslim terror

Challah's Gaza Rocket Counter

This Month:4Last Month:191

This Year: 562

Total since 2002: 12055

Cease fire Hamas style!!

Thanks http://challahhuakbar.blogspot.com/

"Islamophobia"

"Islamophobia" was a politically manipulative coinage designed to silence critics of Islamic supremacism.It was invented, deliberately, by a Muslim Brotherhood front organization, the International Institute for Islamic Thought, which is based in Northern Virginia.

10 Unknown West Bank Facts

Liberals Redefine "Extremism" and the "Political Center"

On March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview

with PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist.The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

Don’t ever call it ‘West Bank’ again

In March 1977, Zahir Muhsein, a PLO executive, said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism."

"For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

Who do the territories belong to?

The legal borders of Israel under international law

The Arab Apartheid

Ben-Dror YeminiIn 1948, the Arab countries refused to accept the UN partition proposal and they launched a war of annihilation against the State of Israel which had barely been established. All precedents in this matter showed that the party that starts the war - and with a declaration of annihilation, yet - pays a price for it. Between 550,000 and 710,000 Arabs fled because of the war and a larger number of 850,000 Jews were expelled or fled from Arab countries (the "Jewish nakba").Population exchanges and expulsions were the norm at that time, occurring in dozens of other conflict points and affecting about 52 million people. In all the population exchange precedents that occurred during or at the end of an armed conflict, there was no return of refugees to the previous region, which had turned into a new national state. Only the Arab states acted completely differently from the rest of the world. Instead of assimilating the refugees, they crushed them despite the fact that they were their coreligionists and members of the Arab nation - instituting a regime of apartheid. So the "nakba" was not caused by the actual dispossession, which had also been experienced by tens of millions of others. The "nakba" is the story of the apartheid, oppression, abuse and denial of rights suffered by the Arab refugees at the hands of the Arab countries. (Maariv)

How Liberals Argue

Hebrew Univ-you rock!!

Judea and Samaria are not "occupied" lands-why?

Judea-Samaria were not only parts of the ancient Jewish homeland but were recognized as part of the Jewish National Home recognized by San Remo and the League of Nations [1920, 1922] and by the UN charter [article 80; 1945].

"Political Correctness."

"Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rapidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end."Texas A&M

Christopher Monckton Speaking in St. Paul on the climate issues

International Law and Military Operations in Practice - Col. Richard Kemp

"Islamist fighting groups study the international laws of armed conflict carefully and they understand it well. They know that a British or Israeli commander and his men are bound by international law and the rules of engagement that flow from it. They then do their utmost to exploit what they view as one of their enemy's main weaknesses. Their very modus operandi is built on the correct assumption that Western armies will normally abide by the rules, while these insurgents employ a deliberate policy of operating consistently outside international law. "

Lost Historical Moments

WHAT Golda Meir actually said...

"When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was either southern Syria before the First World War, and then it was a Palestine including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist." Golda Meir June 15, 1969: Interview in the UK Sunday Times

What Rabin’s last Knesset speech really said:repudiation of a Palestinian state

Rabin ruled out a fully sovereign Palestinian state :

“We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority.”

Rabin ruled out a total withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and thus a return to the pre-June 1967 borders :

“The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”

Rabin ruled out withdrawing form the Jordan Valley:

“The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.”

Rabin ruled out uprooting settlement blocs, like the Gush Katif bloc in Gaza (which was subsequently uprooted by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon):

“The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif.

AND

Rabin ruled out removing any settlement before coming to a full peace agreement with the Palestinians:

“I want to remind you: we committed ourselves, that is, we came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth.”

Rabin insisted on Israel retaining full security control of the borders with Egypt and Jordan, contrary to Israel’s relinquishment of the Philadelphia Corridor on the border with Egypt:

“The responsibility for external security along the borders with Egypt and Jordan, as well as control over the airspace above all of the territories and Gaza Strip maritime zone, remains in our hands.”

Correcting Oslo Myths-Part 2

3) Kuttab laments that the post-1993 Oslo process resulted in a Palestinian Authority "whose ministers and legislators are not guaranteed passage between Gaza and the West Bank ...."

Before free passage or other perquisites, PA leaders were obligated, among other things, to eliminate the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, end anti-Israeli, antisemitic incitement in schools, mosques, and communications media, and resolve all outstanding issues through peaceful negotiations. They met none of these commitments, sometimes bolstering terrorism and greatly increasing incitement.

4) Kuttab complains that under Oslo the PA got "lightly armed police ---- but no real sovereignty over the land or contiguity between our communities in Gaza and the West Bank."

Oslo agreements repeatedly were revised, regardless of Palestinian non-compliance, until the authorized number of police grew from 8,000 to 40,000. Though they were to be the only armed forces in the territories, Israeli estimates early in the second intifada put the number of gunmen - police, "security services," terrorists, and armed gangs - at 85,000. Their armament reportedly included not only heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, but also anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.

Sovereignty was to be negotiated in the envisioned 1998 "final status" talks - after a five-year period of confidence-building. Palestinian leadership chronically undermined the process. Palestinian terrorism made the 1993 - 1998 Oslo period more deadly for Israelis than the 15 years preceding it.

The United States doesn't have contiguity between the lower 48 states and Alaska and Hawaii; territorial contiguity between the West Bank and Gaza Strip - that is, through the 20 miles of Israeli territory between them - was never promised and would destroy Israeli contiguity.

5) "Palestinians have been made to endure hundreds of checkpoints in the West Bank, an eight-foot wall deep in our territories, and tight Israeli control over borders."

The security barrier is not "deep in Palestinian territories," but rather encompasses less than 8 percent of Judea and Samaria, and is mostly a fence, rarely a wall; the land in question is not "our [Palestinian] territories" but disputed territory to which, according to the authors of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, Jews as well as Arabs have claims; and there are no international borders, only the 1949 armistice lines with Jordan. Under 242, borders remain to be negotiated. As for checkpoints - like the security barrier and "tight Israeli control" - Palestinian Arabs precipitated these measures themselves. No terrorism and there would be no fence or tight Israeli control and few checkpoints - like before the first intifada.

Correcting Some Oslo Myths

1) In Oslo "Israeli, Palestinian and other world leaders promised that ... Palestinian sovereignty would be solidified."

No, they didn't. The 1993 Declaration of Principles and subsequent Oslo agreements outlined a process by which final status negotiations about the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be reached. The process required an end to anti-Israel terrorism and incitement and a commitment to peaceful negotiations. The PA, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other terrorist groups, sabotaged the process from the start.

2) "The reality is that, in defiance of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which states that it is inadmissible to occupy land by force, Palestinian territories are still under foreign military occupation."Wrong again. Resolution 242 (1967) does note "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war." It also affirms the right of every state in the area "to live in peace with secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." There were no "Palestinian territories." Jordan occupied the West Bank, Egypt controlled Gaza. Israel did not have "secure and recognized boundaries," so retention of some of those territories was possible under 242. Israel is not a "foreign" military occupier in the West Bank but, pending final negotiations, the lawful military administrator as a result of a successful war of self-defense.

About Me

Semi-retired Professor, now also permanent resident of Israel;divides time between both countries-serves on several Boards of Directors for Israel advocacy groups;Chana, resident of Jerusalem, JCPA member